


The Beginning

by gill



Series: Hartmon Week 2016 [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, Hartmon Week 2016, M/M, Major Character Injury, Poor Cisco, Soulmates, but you know its all canonical so, idk how to tag this is my first fic pls bear with me, its p much an add on to what might have happened right after the accelerator explosion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 05:45:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6942232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gill/pseuds/gill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He needed to know all of the damage that had been caused by their failure, by <em>his</em> failure. Needed to be aware of exactly how many lives had been touched by the horror of that night. </p><p>It felt like the least he could do to atone for his sins."</p><p>Poor Cisco is struggling after the events of the Particle Accelerator malfunction - Entry for Day One (Soulmate AU) of Hartmon Week 2016</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beginning

It had been only days since the disaster that was Central City's Particle Accelerator had ripped a hole through the city, along with what might as well have been Cisco's soul. But in that short time it felt as though Cisco had aged years. It had taken a toll on them all, having years of their work result not in the revolutionary scientific discoveries they had imagined but instead widespread mayhem and pain for far too many people.

As the official death toll rose, and the list of injuries and missing persons continued to grow what seemed impossibly longer, the mass in Cisco’s stomach (that had taken root the second the first warnings sounded alerting them that the Particle Accelerator had malfunctioned) only seemed to increase. His despair deepening into every atom of his body until it felt like he had become more regret and sorrow than man.

It would be fair to say he was not coping.

Overtaken by guilt, Cisco had taken to visiting the local hospitals that were still dealing with the fall out of their failure. Treating those injured by the blast, the hospitals had only just returned to a relative sense of normality following the horror that was the sudden influx of patients during a power outage that eventful night.

Cisco had heard that St Andrew’s was treating a man who had been struck by lightning that night, a concept that would have originally intrigued and entertained Cisco but now only served to remind him of another of his failures. I mean, it wasn’t likely that this man was even going to survive the damage done to his heart. Even without having officially died yet, Cisco added the man’s lost soul to his burden of demons.

The guy had supposedly been struck down while at work. A twenty-something year old man, given a death sentence by no fault of his own. His family must be devastated. He was just doing his job, and because Cisco didn’t do his properly now the poor guy would most likely never wake up.

Actively acknowledging all of the injuries his work had caused only served to continue to break Cisco’s heart, but he just couldn’t stop.

He continued to seek out those whose tragic fate he had had a hand in. Unable to give any meaningful assistance with his lack of any actual medical knowledge, or to offer condolences to family members when knowing his presence would only cause more distress.

He needed to know all of the damage that had been caused by their failure, by _his_ failure. Needed to be aware of exactly how many lives had been touched by the horror of that night.

It felt like the least he could do to atone for his sins.

 

* * *

 

2 weeks had passed since the Day of the Particle Accelerator Disaster.

Whispers had started to circulate that the explosion had _affected_ people in strange ways. Rumours that people had discovered new abilities sounded fantastically exciting and horrifying at the same time, as hard as they were to believe. But most frequently heard were the beliefs that the explosion had caused people to become… connected. That there were people who had experienced the development of physical and mental bonds with another person, their ‘other half.’

That belief was gaining some weight recently, with steadily growing proof as more and more pairs claimed to be affected and subsequently tested; their _affliction_ being cited as a delayed effect of the explosion.

Cisco couldn’t help but believe all of the reports. With all of the damage the blast had already been reported to have caused, what’s one more burden to add to the pile? Of _course_ the accelerator had affected even more people in even more unpredictable ways. Typical.

But even as the cases of those pairs claiming to be affected grew, Cisco didn’t consider himself at all likely to join their numbers, to be touched at all by this growing phenomenon of bonded couples. Having been living alone since he left college, and not having even spoken to anyone but various hospital staff in the two weeks since the instigation of his self-appointed punishment. He assumed he would be exempt from any spreading ‘couple’ _effects_.

Well, looks like he had been wrong.

Meekly trudging along the busying hallways of Central City General, Cisco had been on his way to speak with the head of the emergency department in an offer of his technical services free of charge to aid the full restoration of the Hospital’s technology following the damage caused by the blast. Countless radiography imaging machines had become inexplicably non-functional throughout Central City since that night. Another consequence of their failure. But something Cisco could actually offer his assistance with.

Having taken a few unnoticed wrong turns in his depressed musings and what is now his perpetually distracted guilty state, he found himself suddenly aware that he was not where he was meant to be. Facing a full ward intercut with alternatingly drawn and open curtains, Cisco’s eyes landed on a familiar form through a gap in the curtains of the ‘room’ to his right.

“Hartley?” he croaked out, sanding stock still in shock. Disbelieving of the fact that he would come across his former rival in such a place as this.

There was no reaction from the other man, his eyes half lidded and obviously unconscious as he lay on the hospital bed.

Cisco shuffled his way to his bed, sliding through the gap through the curtains into the modicum of privacy afforded to his clearly injured former colleague.

He looked terrible.

Face cut and bruised and skull swathed in bandages the man looked positively broken as he lay unresponsive under the white covers. Looking suddenly smaller than Cisco ever remembered him.

God, what had happened to him?

Staring down at Hartley, Cisco felt his hand raise unbidden to gently reach out to the other’s uncovered arm. As his hand gently clasped the appendage Cisco felt a sudden overwhelming rush of emotion and physical stimulus that left him reeling.

From the swarm of sensations Cisco began to pick out individual feelings, sight of experiences that he knew were not his own, until they solidified into a terrifyingly strong memory.

> _The sound of screaming and excruciating pain slicing through his head, the weightlessness and full body agony as he fell down what he knew to be the flight of stairs outside of STAR Labs, the feeling of blood dripping from his ears and his head as the sky burned orange, vision dimming to leave just the never ending screams of pain._

Pulled from the memory Cisco found himself suddenly back on his own two feet, staring down at his tensed hand upon Hartley’s arm. Head still screaming from the terrifying moment of dissociation but quickly dimming to a more manageable constant hum of pain, Cisco felt adrenaline flooding his body.

What _WAS_ that!?

Feeling Hartley begin to stir Cisco snatched his hand back, pulling it close to his body and jumping away as if he had been burned. He watched as Hartley’s eyes jerked under their lids, limbs moving in tense aborted movements before he stilled once again.

Breath heaving and heart pounding from the pain of the strange hallucination and the sudden (irrational) fear of Hartley waking up, Cisco recovered enough to raise a shaky hand to his left ear. Feeling a warm wetness dripping form the canal, he almost fainted when his fingers felt what he knew must be his flowing blood. Pulling his hand back in front of his face to hurriedly examine the liquid, he only grew more confused when the hand appeared completely bare and dry.

Was he losing it? Was the stress of the last two weeks finally cracking him? Honestly, the most surprising thing here was that it hadn’t happened sooner.

Body numb and head spinning Cisco had no idea that had Hartley not been so repressed under the heavy sedation he had been administered, he too would have been sharing Cisco’s confusion and experience.

As it was, the extensive head trauma, brain surgeries and continued sedation following the persistent continuation of the unexplained excruciating pain would not allow Hartley to meet Cisco while conscious for many more weeks.

But Cisco would return to his resting form for continued quiet visits, watching over the man for hours a day, feeling the need to be near the man that had once been his greatest rival but now lay broken and alone because of what they had made. And unknowing as to the true depth of the connection shared between them that remained only half awoken.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first published fic (yay!! but also ahhh!!) so if i've made any glaringly obvious errors with my tagging or anything like that please let me know! I know I'm not the best writer but I really wanted to contribute to this week bc Hartley is everything. so I hope this isn't too bad!


End file.
